G. Carrington, W. Scott, T. Ludlow, capt. G. Hunter, ens. 17th, No. 1, Thos. Scott, Chas. Stewart, A. Dunbar, E. N. Long, F. Lawrence, C. Wake, W. Mathews, Thomas Charters, John Saw, Thos. Dennis, lieut. R. Gun, lieut. R. Macpherson, B. Marley, lieut. Col. S. Fraser, lieut. W. Hanley, lieut. A. Adams, capt. W. Reynold, lieut. H. Faithful, lieut. T. H. Warner, lieut. Charles Martin, lieut. W. Sinnock, lieut. G. Pennington, T. W. Grant, James Tod, R. Triepland, D. Triepland, R. Chapman, R. Jeffreys, chaplain, Lewis Grant, lieut. col. James Denny, W. S. Pryor, capt. C. Mouat, capt. engrs. W. Burke, J. G. Henderson, H. Pennington, lieut. George Hyde, lieut. W. Graham, ens. Lionel Berkeley, R. P. Williams, Jervas Robinson, W. Sherburn, Geo. Carpenter, capt. 17th regt. D. Sloane, ditto, A. Hennessey, A. Campbell, W. Ward, P. Genti y, Charles Lloyd, G. Proctor, George Parole, lieut. col. A. Stewart, lieut. Horatio Thos.

I receive this grateful and distinguished mark of your confidence and esteem, with the most sincere and cordial satisfaction. The sense which you have manifested of the advantages obtained by our country under the recent treaties of peace, reflects great credit upon your public spirit; and the personal regard which you have been pleased to express for my character and services, demands my warmest acknowledgments.

I request you to be assured, that I entertain the highest respect for your favourable opinion, and that it will be a principal object of the study and happiness of my life to merit the honour which you have conferred upon me by this address.

(Signed) WELLESLEY.!

The old civil servants in Bengal,

"A very singular contest has been lately maintained among the civil servants of this presidency, relating to the establishment of a fund for the benefit of the widows and children of those civil servants who may die in indigent circumstances. All concurred in the general propriety of such a fund; but disagreed as to its particular objects. The old civil servants wished the benefit of the fund to extend to illegitimate children. This proposition was strenuously resisted by the younger civil servants now in college, or who had been in college, and also by a few of the most respectable seniors. The arguments of the old civil servants were founded on principles, which they conceived to be charitable, liberal, or just. The juniors contended that the establishing a certain provision for the illegitimate children to be begotten, would be some encouragement to beget them.

"This contest was maintained with great spirit, in a printed correspondence, which was circulated throughout the service; and it is supposed that the best abilities of the old civil servants have been engaged in it. What has rendered it so much a subject of notice there is, that the young men ap peared to be on the side, where it might be expected, the old men

and the College of Fort William.

would be. The young men professed to be on the side of religion and virtue. This was a good joke to the old men; and an ode was addressed to the "virtuous youths," desiring them to "descend from the stilts," and to do like other people. An extract from the printed addresses of each party, will serve to shew the nature of the discussion."

THE OLD MEN.

"It is objected, by the young men,--that in every age and nation,in which any thing like a state of civil society has existed, the law has distinctly declared that illegitimate children are not entitled to the same benefits with the offspring of a lawful marriage; and the wisdom of this law cannot be disputed." But the distinction established by the laws of England between the issue of a lawful marriage, and the offspring of illegal intercourse, is restricted to the right of inheritance; which, in most cases, may be provided against, by the testament of the father in favour of his illegitimate child; and the eminent commentator of those laws has pronounced, that "any other distinction but that of not inheriting, which civil policy renders necessary, would, with regard to the innocent offspring of his pa

rent's

rent's crimes, be odius, unjust, and cruel to the last degree."

The same laws protect the illegitimate children in the enjoyment of all acquired rights, compel the parent to maintain his child though illegally begotten; or, if thrown upon the parish, have provided for the maintenance of the child, by a public contribution levied under the sanction of the laws, for this and for other purposes of charity. There are, moreover, in England, as in many other countries, various public institutions for the support and education of illegitimate children, in common with children born in wedlock.

"Can it then be justly alledged, that a provision in the rules of the Bengal civil fund for the suitable maintenance and education of the illegitimate children of subscribers who may die without the means of providing for them, will occasion, or have the remotest tendency towards the total violation of one of the great ordinances of divine law, and the direct overthrow of all the principles and distinctions which have been established and maintained by the authority of the world?" What ordinance, divine or human, will be violated by such a provision? The laws of religion and of civil policy inculcate and enforce the father's duty to provide for the maintenance and good education of his child; and the first principle of this institution is, to take upon itself the parent's obligations towards his family, when the latter are unhappily deprived of him by death, and left without other means of support.

"It is not proposed to assign the same fixed allowances from the civil fund, for children born in, or out of wedlock; much less to constitute any equality of rank in so

ciety between them; and any comparison of the Europeans and Indian mothers, of the two classes of children, is as indelicate and unnecessary, as it is foreign to the subject under consideration.

It is enough, therefore, to ob serve upon all the reasoning and thetoric which have been displayed (by the young men) on these topics, that they are altogether irrelevant to the question, of providing a sufficient maintenance and education for illegitimate children, left by the death of their fathers in a state of distress; that no established distinctions will be levelled by such a provision; and that no proclamation will be made by it, either

That a prostitute is as respectable as a wife;" or "that the offspring of vice shall rank with the children of virtue."

THE YOUNG MEN.

"Without noticing the divine or ancient civil law which lays the heaviest restriction upon illegitimate children, it is admitted (by the old men) that the law of England excludes illegitimate children from the right of inheritance; but the civil fund, with the extension proposed, would admit them to it :the provision from the fund will not be a charity, but a right; not a gift, but an inheritance; which the illegitimate children will be entitled to from the regulations of the institution, in opposition to the established principles of the law of England.

"It is wished by our opponents to avoid the comparison of the European and Indian mothers; of the wife and prostitute; which is stated to be irrelevant to the question.

It

This we cannot admit. is in the mothers that the distinction originally exists, and we humbly conceive, that if there were no

distinction in the mothers, there would be none in the children, and that we should be all agreed to admit them to the full and equal benefits of the institution.

"It is admitted further, with apparent reluctance, that the increase of the race of half-casts, is a national evil. If, therefore, it can be proved, that the extension of the fund to a provision for that race, will tend to their increase, it must be admited that the institution, with that extension, will be vicious. The very circumstance, that no restrictions or impediments have hitherto prevented their growth, appears in itself to prove that they must increase amazingly under a system of support and encourage

"It has never been alleged by us, that the extension of charity to illegitimate children, is a violation of divine law; and the labour of our opponents in combating with serious argument, such a position, manifests a disposition to elude the real object of this discussion. But we assert, the species of connection which produces illegitimate children, is a violation of divine law; and any public measure of any body of men, tending to sanction such a practice among themselves, or to encourage such a practice, by detracting from the odium attending it, and boldly discussing it in public, without affecting any concealment, is very unfavourable to general morals, and is hurtful to society.

"The grand argument urged in favour of a public institution for the support of the illegitimate children of the civil servants is, the assumption that similar institutions exist in England. We are not afraid of contradiction when

we assert, that no similar institution exists in England.

"The body of Bengal civil servants, the chartered servants of the honourable Company, meet, as in a corporate capacity, and say, "let us establish a fund for the support of our illegitimate children." Was ever any thing like this done in England? If any body of men in England were to come forward in their corporate capacity, (for example, the members of the House of Commons, or the Court of Directors of the East India Company) and establish a public institution for their own il, gitimate children, then, indeed, would there be an institution in England analagous to that proposed here.

The Bengal civil servants are a body of men comparatively few in number, (little more than half the House of Commons) and placed in high situations, who administer the government of the country; and any argument from humanity, justice and duty, urged in favour of the proposed extension of the institution, would apply accurately, and without the variation of a single phrase, to an institution for the benefit of the illegitimate children of the members of any corporate body in England.

"We are informed, (by the old men) that in England there is the Foundling Hospital, and the Asylum, and the Philanthropic Society, for children of criminal parents. It is true that these, and many other laudable institutions, Iråve been established by a good nation, to counteract the vice of its few bad members. But must there then be an establishment for the illegitimate children of the Bengal civil servants? Why may not their illegitimate children be supported

in time to come, as in time past, by their own fathers, or by the charitable institutions which already exist in Calcutta ?

"It has been usual in other societies, to treat all such questions with delicacy and reserve, and to look upon immoral connections with shame and silence. On the present occasion, we find all former notions of decency and correct conduct laid aside, and the assumed rights of illegitimate children asserted in the boldest manner.

"We beg leave to refer you to our former address, and to repeat our firm conviction that the civil fund, if loaded by the proposed extension of its objects to illegitimate children, will tend to the destruction of public principles, to the overthrow of established and sacred institutions, to the encouragement of prostitution and vice, to the disgrace of the character of this settlement, and to the injury of the interests of our country." . (Signed) C. T. METCALFE.

J. ADAM.

in this country too long for the public good, or our own happiness. We delay the hour of departure until we lose our English ideas, our English affections; until, in fact, we forget the distinction be. tween a concubine and a wife.

"It is a circumstance most sin gular, but most honourable, to the rising generation, and to the character of this service, that the ju, nior members of it, almost without exception, have shewn themselves, on this occasion, the warm advo cates of virtue, and have supported with animated zeal, those moral distinctions which constitute the great basis of civil society."

After the discussion had been maintained for a considerable time, the two parties formally divided, nearly in equal numbers, each proposing a fund of their own, the one fund to include illegitimate children; and the other to exclude them. They have submitted their respective plans to the governorgeneral in council, praying his exCellency's sanction of them, and also his recommendation to the honourable the court of directors. In the mean time, his excellency has been engaged in a contest of another kind with the Mahrattas, and has had no time to notice civil contentions.